Mystery Radio Message

[CasinoChris]

During the ships career a radio message was received concerning a victualing (stores) request for the next New York portcall. This message could not be verified by Cunard in NY. The QE2's call sign, GBTT was used by the original Queen Mary. Upon further examination it was found that the message received was intended for the Queen Mary not QE2.
I was reliably informed of this by the chief radio officer, in fact they had a recording of the message.....where did it come from?
Cheers
CasinoChris

[MiamiCunarder]

 Fascinating story, Chris! Makes one suspect that the message may have somehow been suspended in time over the waters of the N Atlantic... Could we have another Bermuda Triangle tale here?


   Ron

[Avariel]

I've heard of this story, or something similar, before.

Apparently the radio message got somehow suck bouncing around the atmosphere for many years before it was recieved by the QE2.

[Louis De Sousa]

I think i recall once that a message was send to Cunard Office in NY saying the QE2 had sunk in the Mid Atlantic.I wonder if that was ever true.

Louis

[Peter Mugridge]

( Posted with Rob's permission as I am not former crew ).


I passed this thread to a radio expert friend of mine; he replied to tell me that radio messages can indeed "get stuck" for years in the atmosphere if the conditions are right, especially long wave radio.

Obvious question here: Was the system on which this mystery message arrived a long wave system?

[jdl]

fascinating, I would have loved to have been in the radio room or on the bridge when this message came in.  I wonder how many times it was checked and verified!

jdl

[peter ward]

just heard a strange story on local radio told by a locally well known ghost story/unexplained mystery compiler. It goes like this ...in february 1978 the radio operator on the QE2 received a distress call on an old wavelength which said ' come quick in distress ..boiler rooms flooded ,ship is sinking' .the operator changed to the wavelength and replied what is the name of your ship ..the reply 'Titanic' ...spooky !..the captain on the bridge was informed and the operator tried to contact the ship again but with no avail..when the 'incident' was logged it appeared that the ships position was almost the same as the Titanic's when she foundered all those years earlier ! Now this story teller even had a recording of the morse message which he played thru loads of static ..eerie, though a caller rang in to say he was a retired radio operator and that it sounded to formulated to be manual and it was probably a hoax ... but to receive the message at the same position ? the story tellers web is www.slemen.co.uk if you want a read .

[Rob Lightbody]

I don't think its true personally ... i think its a story that's been told elsewhere on the forum (https://www.theqe2story.com/forum/index.php/topic,1141.0.html) , that's been corrupted by re-telling.

[Rob Lightbody]

I think the web address from the Peter's initial posting should be - http://www.slemen.com/

[Rod]

Lets drop this one..OK it was a hoax that wa spread around the world.
Simply not true.
Ever hear the term hacker? Well radio officers had hackers before computers did!

[Barry Lintott]

well infact it it true that a meesage was received by the QE2 from the queen mary  many years later.my father was actually in the room at the time it came in(he was one of three men present).

[Peter Mugridge]

May I just ask for clarification, please:

The hoax thing - that is the Titanic message isn't it?

While the genuine mystery message is the one originally sent by or intended for the old Queen Mary?  Nobody ever answered my question as to whether this message was received on a long wave system...

[June Ingram]

I do not know the specifics but did read somewhere not long ago in a legitimate article, that the US military had recently picked up some sort of transmission from an aircraft from World Was II, and supposedly there is an explanation that is not a hoax. 

[Peter Mugridge]

June - see what my friend said in post #4; again if the US Military were using a long wave system it is feasible.

[June Ingram]

Thank you, Peter, for directing me to an earlier post.  That is it exactly !   

[Lynda Bradford]

well infact it it true that a meesage was received by the QE2 from the queen mary  many years later.my father was actually in the room at the time it came in(he was one of three men present).

How interesting Barry, did you father speak about the reaction onboard when the message was received.  I can imagine that the discussions we are having on this topic would have similar. 

[trevorc]

just heard a strange story on local radio told by a locally well known ghost story/unexplained mystery compiler. It goes like this ...in february 1978 the radio operator on the QE2 received a distress call on an old wavelength which said ' come quick in distress ..boiler rooms flooded ,ship is sinking' .the operator changed to the wavelength and replied what is the name of your ship ..the reply 'Titanic' ...spooky !..the captain on the bridge was informed and the operator tried to contact the ship again but with no avail..when the 'incident' was logged it appeared that the ships position was almost the same as the Titanic's when she foundered all those years earlier ! Now this story teller even had a recording of the morse message which he played thru loads of static ..eerie, though a caller rang in to say he was a retired radio operator and that it sounded to formulated to be manual and it was probably a hoax ... but to receive the message at the same position ? the story tellers web is www.slemen.co.uk if you want a read .

Even if it's a hoax I love these stories.